


Levity

by AnyoftheKates



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Infidelity, M/M, Mutual Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 01:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20788391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnyoftheKates/pseuds/AnyoftheKates
Summary: “You think I want to be fucking jealous?” ... “You don’t think that I want to be home with her?! I’d give anything not care about the way girls smile for you. People expect things of me, and she’s perfect, and I don’t give a shit because I want you so bad sometimes I can barely breathe.”





	Levity

Draco tried, all night, to pay no heed to the eyes Harry drew. These post-work gatherings were always a bit of a meat market, Draco’s presence, as a married man, something of an anomaly. Draco knew he was not the only one who felt drawn in by bright green eyes, made more intense by heavy, dark brows or by his jaw, sharp and strong. One girl in particular, petite and blonde, proved bolder than the others. She made her way into their group, inserting herself between Draco and Harry. She tilted her head severely to meet Harry’s eyes. Even Draco, standing several inches taller than her, sometimes craned his neck to speak to him, so he understood the appeal. Looking at Harry from below always felt like he an act of supplication.

Harry told a joke that Draco didn’t hear, his brain too loud with anger, and the girl laughed, harder than Draco thought necessary, using the laugh to lean into Harry. His already defined chest seemed to puff a little, ego boosted by her laughter. Draco rolled his eyes without realizing Harry had glanced over at him. Harry raised an eyebrow but said nothing. That his eyes had wandered did not escape the girl’s notice, and she placed her hand on Harry’s bicep, wiry and defined, wrapped with ink, to bring his attention back to her. Draco downed the remains of the drink in his hand and muttered something about getting another before making a beeline for the bar. Harry obviously had plenty to keep himself occupied.

The bartender leaned toward Draco, “Another vodka soda?” he asked.

“Please, And a double tequila.”

“My kind of man,” he said, pouring both drinks, winking as he set them in front of Draco. He threw the tequila back, relishing the burn in my throat, soothing the knot that had begun to form there. He picked up the other glass when he felt a hand at the small of his back. He whipped around and saw Harry, smirking down at him.

“Barkeep seems keen on you,” he mused, trying to sound light but missing the mark.

“Jealous?” Draco asked, matching his tone but looking into his eyes with an intensity that belied my teasing. He missed this, flirting back and forth. There was a time when it was an easy part of their friendship. Lately, the air between them seemed to sabotage the levity of their banter.

Harry’s voice went soft, all trace of joking gone, as he muttered “No. He’s not the one I’m jealous of.”

As Draco looked up at him, he tried to bring that levity back. “She was cute,” he remarked, one eyebrow raised, gesturing towards the girl from earlier, “Super into you.” He tried and failed to manage a smirk unmarred by the acerbic way he had felt, watching her lean in and grab onto Harry.

“Sounds like I’m not the jealous one. Why do you care?” His words punched Draco in the gut. He couldn’t help but look shocked. He softened his voice to remind Harry that this thing boiling between them notwithstanding, “I care about you, have for some time now.” Harry seemed to hear him and looked relieved.

He placed his hand on the wall near Draco’s head, head tilting down to meet his grey eyes. The closeness jarred Draco. He breathed Draco’s name, the malty smell of Guinness heavy on Harry’s breath. The proximity of the bodies around them made Draco tense, but Harry seemed not to notice them. Draco longed to give Harry his undivided attention but he would have to settle for his undivided attraction. Draco know he wouldn’t be able to shake the fear that one of his coworkers was sober enough and unengaged enough in their own ongoings to notice their closeness. To draw the conclusions both he and Harry had been so unwilling to vocalize.

Against his better judgement, Draco leaned into the conversation, the desire for his words to go unheard winning out against his desire to hide the his way body seemed to be drawn in to Harry’s. Posture, he reasoned was open to interpretation, but he suspected Harry’s words would not be.

“Draco,” he breathed, and he had never heard his name sound so much like begging.

“Don’t,” Draco breathed in return. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”

Harry’s eyebrows knit together, in confused anger. Draco loved the way his face told his every feeling. His sincerity constantly catching Draco off guard.

“Hard? You’re actually gonna stand there and tell me that me loving you is hard for you?” Harry spat. Again, his volume betrayed that he had nothing to lose to wandering ears. Draco’s heart came to an abrupt halt at the word, then started again, pounding.

“Outside,” Draco hissed. He grabbed Harry’s wrist, carefully avoiding allowing their fingers to meet, before pulling him out the front of the bar. Draco was confident their egress, at least, would draw no eyes. Harry often walked him out after these things, his fear of the dark well known among his co-workers.

He yanked Harry into the alley. “Always the theatrics. I can’t tell if your dramatic ass is the thing I love most or hate most about you.”

“Again with the love thing. Just shout it out for anyone to hear why don’t you?”

“That’s just it. I want to. I want to shout it to every fucking person I walk past. But you have her. You have her and I have nobody and you have the nerve to stand there looking jealous and getting drunk because some girl I don’t fucking care about wants me.”

“You think I want to be fucking jealous?” Draco was too far gone to control his volume now. “You don’t think that I want to be home with her?! I’d give anything not care about the way girls smile for you. People expect things of me. She’s perfect, and people expect things of me, and I don’t give a shit because I want you so bad sometimes I can barely breathe.”

Draco saw Harry’s eyes drop to his lips, and before he knew it, Harry shoved him into the brick wall of the alley.

Where he expected to feel Harry’s lips immediately on his though, he felt only tension. Harry glanced from Draco’s lips to his eyes and back again, their lips mere centimeters apart. Harry hesitated, as did Draco. He could feel the line they had been walking for months, the line that separated want from propriety. That tension, the proximity between their lips, was the sexiest thing Draco had ever felt. He hesitated. He wanted so much for Harry to pull away, wanted so much for him to close the space between them.

Harry hesitated like a question, asking for permission. Draco nodded, so slightly hoping perhaps Harry would not see it for what it was. But he saw, as he had always seen Draco and tenderly closed the space between their lips. Draco wanted to cry, to scream, to melt. And melt he did. Harry slid his hand to the small of Draco’s back and the other to his cheek. Draco leaned into Harry’s hand and into his lips. He tasted like magic, like waiting, like, if Draco was brave enough to admit it, love. Draco ran his tongue lightly across Harry’s lower lip, tasting him. Harry moaned into his mouth, and he knew there was no going back.

As they pulled apart, as tenderly as they had come together. Harry leaned his forehead down to meet Draco’s own, and Draco felt light, like he was floating. Harry chuckled, satisfied eyes gleaming. That twinkle in his eye was the most beautiful thing Draco had ever seen. The trace of mischief, of levity, that had long since left his face had returned with a vengeance.

“So,” he smirked, “the blonde was into me, was she?”

Draco quickly switched their positions, so Harry’s back was against the wall. “Shut the fuck up,” Draco murmered, before pressing his lips into Harry’s. Harry smirked again, this time against Draco’s lips. He pulled back, dropping his hand into Draco’s. No longer did Draco have to settle for brushes of Harry’s hand against his own, to settle for not quite accidents. Instead, he laced his fingers into Harry’s and felt whole. Harry looked to their hands, then into Draco’s eyes, his face so full of hope, so full of light that Draco couldn't help himself.

Again, He grabbed Harry's wrist, pulling him out of the alley, and back through the same bar door. As they stood in the entrance, Draco looked up at him. Softly, without worry, he looked into those soft green eyes and whispered for the first time “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is appreciated, always.


End file.
